MARCO PIERRE WHITE | INTERVIEW
A man of numerous paradoxes and contradictions, superstar chef Marco Pierre White is a unique interviewee, as Fedor Tot finds out.
On a soggy, rain-drenched day, one might expect the famously temperamental chef to be in a foul mood, but not so here. He’s rather charming and friendly, greeting us with a smile as he surveys his latest restaurant in Cardiff, another addition to the Marco Pierre White steakhouse chain. He seems to be quite amicable to Cardiff and Wales, stating: “There’s good food in every corner of Britain now. That’s the thing – people’s interest in food is way greater than it was 30, 40 years ago. Cooks also travel the world now and they come back home, settle and share their knowledge. I think every part of Britain is becoming increasingly interested in food, not just London.”
Considering that as recently as September, Marco Pierre White went to Plymouth to open another of his restaurants and claimed, “London is the no.1 food destination, full stop. It has the talent and (the people who can pay) the prices,” it’s just the first of many little U-turns and contradictions Marco makes in the course of our brief time together. Read any interview with the man and you’ll notice he rarely seems to maintain the same opinion twice.
Once the youngest chef to attain three Michelin stars, he decided to retire from being a chef in 1999 and has since largely focused on becoming a restauranteur, building his chain of Marco Pierre White restaurants across the UK. After the hectic 300mph nature of his life in the 1980s and 90s, he appears to have shifted down to a much more sedentary lifestyle, going to bed as early as 9pm and shunning TVs, the internet and social media as much as possible.
The book he’s promoting today, Marco Made Easy, seems reflective of that. “I’m a great believer that everything in life should be easy, whether it’s a restaurant, whether it’s a book, whatever, it should be easy. I don’t like complication, it confuses me, I think made easy makes sense… I like cold ham for example, I like pork pies, I like cheese. I don’t like all the complication in life.
“I don’t have a busy life, I have a quite simple life,” he continues. “I’m actually unemployed, I don’t have a job, so that means my life is really easy.” Leaving aside how one can be unemployed while owning a chain of successful restaurants bearing one’s name, Buzz suggests whether his desire for simplicity arose out of the pace of White’s 90s years, something he seems unconvinced by. “Well, most of my reputation was a product of exaggeration and fabrication. If I was that person do you think I would have won three stars in Michelin?”
I suggest that the kind of person who wins three Michelin stars by the age of 32 needs a certain a level of determination and fire in their belly. “Determination is one thing but I spent six, seven days a week in a restaurant, in the kitchen working and on occasions I did ask customers to leave.” Fixing a glare, he adds, “The Daily Mail has a wonderful way of fabricating and elaborating the smallest of stories, but that’s what you journalists specialise in. If they don’t sensationalise then how long are they going to keep their job? They have to sensationalise, just look at the headlines. I think the news is all about exaggeration.” Just as well, then, that Buzz is free to pick up.
Marco is quite stridently suspicious of the media, perhaps with good reason, but it’s not long before another contradiction turns up. “I don’t watch the news, I don’t watch TV. I’m quite old fashioned really in that sense. Even if I knew how to work Twitter or Instagram I wouldn’t do it, because then you’re allowing people into your life, aren’t you? If there’s one thing I’ve learnt is, privacy is freedom.”
As for reviews? “I’ve never read them. I don’t read the papers and if someone was to write something not very pleasant then that’s their choice isn’t it, it’s one man’s opinion.”
Later on, Marco will wax lyrical on the differences between two food critics and columnists – Jay Rayner and the late AA Gill – indicating he does, in fact, read reviews. Rayner, he says, “goes looking for faults,” referring to the 2016 ‘controversy’ when Rayner visited Cardiff and was left unimpressed by the depth of choice in the city centre; White lauds Gill and his “tongue-in-cheek” manner instead.
Later, he slyly reveals why he mistrusts so much of the media, when referring to a trip to Iraq during the invasion to cook for British troops. “I used to go and feed the troops at Christmas on the frontlines. I saw these young boys watching BBC News and I said to them, ‘when you watch the news and you see the way they portray Iraq and what’s happening, what do you think?’ They said ‘We don’t believe anything we see on the TV anymore, because what we see on TV and what’s actually happening are two different things.’ That’s young men of 22.”
Something about Marco feels as if it arose from flames. He lost his mother at a young age – claiming it was Mother Nature who taught him the most – and was born in a tough working-class community in Leeds. He gives props to some of his early mentors: “I was very privileged that I had some great teachers. Some of the people who taught me, no one’s ever heard of them. People like Ken Lamb, Michael Lawson, great cooks. They taught me more than any of the famous chefs I ever worked for. They taught me how to run, they taught me how to say ‘yes chef’, they taught me how to absorb pressure, they taught me how to multi-task, they taught me how to be screamed at.”
The cooking industry Marco entered in the late 1970s was a vastly different place, something he reflects back on often. “I do take myself back to that world that I came from and I’m glad I was born with a blue collar. When I entered my industry it was very blue-collar, today it’s white-collar. It’s quite interesting how it’s changed – you walk into kitchens today and there aren’t many working-class people in them, it’s the middle classes, the upper middle classes and sometimes the upper class and the aristocracy of England.”
How did that come about? “Just because you’re born into money, it doesn’t mean you’re bright and lots of people who aren’t very bright tend to be very clever with their hands. Maybe that’s why they ended up in kitchens, because they aren’t the sharpest tools in the box, nor the sharpest knives, but they’re good with their hands and maybe have a passion for food. I was lucky.”
Marco Pierre White Steakhouse Bar & Grill, Arcade Dominions House, Queen Street, Cardiff. Info: 029 2010 2711 / www.mpwrestaurants.co.uk
